Where is the Electricity going to come to charge EVs ?

[brianl703]

. The grid is basically designed to run your A/C in hot weather

Years ago, back in the 60s, a lot of houses around here were built with electric baseboard heaters.

And more recently houses are built with heatpumps that have aux heat coils. My heat pump has 20kW of aux heat in it. I've disabled half of it so it's only 10kW, and I've further disabled it so it only comes on when the outdoor unit is in defrost.

But you take a not-so-well insulated house with a heat pump...that aux heat is going to run a LOT when the overnight low is 15-20F.

I have to assume that the grid is sized to handle a lot of houses running 10-20kW of aux heat during the night.

 

[alarmguy]

I am curious as to how far the limits of battery technology can be pushed.

GM did have a "skateboard" design in the works since the late 90s or so ? so.. nobody said he's he's weren't going to gain and popularity but the question is can they replace ICE all together and there are many that think they cannot...

I’m in the camp that lithium battery technology will start to become outdated in the next 10 years 15 years maximum and the promise of solid-state batteries at that point in time will start to make electric vehicles plausible to American families.
All the major manufacturers are working on solid-state battery design, I think and I stress think Toyota expects to have a solid-state battery in 10 years. This will do away the need for lithium and a car will be able to be charged up in minutes but still not as fast as gasoline, yet.

LOL at that point in time we may find out your traditional gas station will be using gasoline powered mega generators to charge up the EV‘s!!!! LOL
Just having fun here, like any new technology there’s gonna be a wide range of changes power generation implications distribution implications and of course battery technology. I’m certainly not an expert on what’s in the pipeline other than things are going to change.

 

[OVERKILL]

There has been a *lot* of progress in the last couple of years on Fusion, and it's well within reach now with refinements. The last 12 months alone has seen massive progress, they're getting there. Besides that, I think increasing wind/solar with batteries or pumped gravity storage hydro will supplement new nuclear, whether in large or small modular reactor form are the way forward. France just announced a bunch of new commercial power reactors, and China/India have been building a bunch for years, time for us to get onboard.

France has one of the lowest emissions grids in Europe thanks the Messmer plan, which resulted in >70% of their electricity coming from nuclear. Macron has thankfully abandoned the earlier plan of dropping nuclear down the 50% and has now committed to 14 new EPR's as well as life extending existing plants. It's a no brainer, as France already knows this works, and they have some of the cheapest rates in Europe for electricity, quite the opposite of the renewables investments in Denmark and Germany. They also have much greater energy security as a result, since a nuke typically has a few years of fuel onsite, while the VRE heavy grids are incredibly dependent on imports of gas or coal.

 

[IndyIan]

It would only be fair to include efficiency the production and distribution costs. For example, how efficient are power stations in converting natural gas to electricity? And how efficient are our transmission lines?

The absolute true measure is economics of turning the wheels in our cars.

Well, from the point of sale for Joe Public purchasing energy to put into their vehicle, that's their running cost per mile. Neither fossil fuel or electrical infrastructure is free, but we only see the price at the pump or meter.
Natural gas generators were only suggested as a temporary solution for some places until some better generation source is implemented.

If in 2023 Toyota came out with an all electric Camry or RAV4 for $20k with a real 300 mile range, bought the rights to use Telsa charging stations, and could make millions of them a year, then you could see electric vehicle uptake outpace electrical infrastructure. But I don't see that happening...
Probably for the next 5 years atleast, electric vehicles won't be sold in enough numbers in most of Canada or US for the majority of utilities to have a problem making or supplying power for them. Also in the US people spend roughly 590 Billion per year on fuel for cars, so there is some money available to up grade electrical infrastructure.

 

[Wolf359]

Who's going to do that proper planning?

The grid operators and the utilities. They've been at it for a long time.

This is the point of the thread, no electric utility is ready for one to three electric vehicles for every American family.
We do not have the capacity and we do not have the infrastructure. All I was saying is I doubt very much market saturation will surpass 10% for electric vehicles in the next 10 years because of that and 20% maybe 15 to 20 years.

The other point most people don't get is that the new car market is less than half of all the cars that are sold every day. It's not going to 100% electric in 5 years even though people talk like it is. You're also not spending 24/7 charging the car, on average it's about 5-10 hours to charge up a car. How often would that be? Once a week?

 

[OVERKILL]

I’m in the camp that lithium battery technology will start to become outdated in the next 10 years 15 years maximum and the promise of solid-state batteries at that point in time will start to make electric vehicles plausible to American families.
All the major manufacturers are working on solid-state battery design, I think and I stress think Toyota expects to have a solid-state battery in 10 years. This will do way the need for lithium and a car will be able to be charged up in minutes but still not as fast as gasoline, yet.

Solid state batteries still use lithium and solid state tech presents its own suite of challenges. It doesn't increase energy density, much, if any, over some of the existing lithium-based designs, the main benefit is the rate of recharge can be faster.

 

[PimTac]

It was a twitter post by CAISO that accompanied this Flex Alert:
http://www.caiso.com/Documents/ISO-Issues-Flex-Alert-for-Energy-Conservation-Tomorrow.pdf

View attachment 95176

Telling people to charge their EV's beforehand, to help reduce demand during the Flex Alert period.

Seems counterintuitive to me.

 

[K.Aoi]

The grid operators and the utilities. They've been at it for a long time.


The other point most people don't get is that the new car market is less than half of all the cars that are sold every day. It's not going to 100% electric in 5 years even though people talk like it is. You're also not spending 24/7 charging the car, on average it's about 5-10 hours to charge up a car. How often would that be? Once a week?

The whole issue is you have a ton of people who let "perfect" become the enemy of "good". For them it's either all or nothing and that just creates stagnation for long periods of time. Everyone is aware that even if tomorrow 100% of all new cars being sold were electric it would take decades for all/most gas vehicles to go disappear. And they point to edge cases of people who drive hundreds of miles per day as a reason that we shouldn't move toward more electric cars. Most people would get by easily charging once, maybe twice a week at the high end and in most cases it'll be charging while you're doing something else, like sleeping.

Now, if you have a single family home with a garage/driveway this is fine. The bigger barrier is apartment complexes, or places with on-street parking where you usually don't have fixed parking spaces. I can't see most landlords of large MDUs or houses in cities investing money in EV charging equipment, considering often getting them to fix basic issues is usually like pulling teeth.

 

[brianl703]

You're also not spending 24/7 charging the car, on average it's about 5-10 hours to charge up a car. How often would that be? Once a week?

If you charge every night you could easily make do with a 16-amp 240V EVSE on a 20A circuit. My Volt only has a 13 amp, 240V (3.3kW) charger on it and in 4 hours that adds 40 miles of range.

That's about the same power consumption as a 2-ton central air conditioner.

And it's probably nicer to the grid to charge more often at a slower rate.

 

[K.Aoi]

Seems counterintuitive to me.

How so? They ask you to charge on cooler days/nights to reduce demand during the period of highest demand for cooling, and lower grid efficiency in high temps.

 

[OVERKILL]

Seems counterintuitive to me.

Cali issues flex alerts when they know they are going to be close to the edge of available capacity, so they advise people to do more energy intensive things beforehand, to reduce load during that flex alert period (where they will actively cut loads if they have to). So, if it was the middle of the day with lots of solar and they have spare available capacity, but they see a shortfall coming at 6PM, they are advising people to do those things when solar capacity is available, rather than later when solar buggers off and they have to fire up the gas plants to keep the lights on.

 

[Slow Car Sport Mode]

I’m in the camp that lithium battery technology will start to become outdated in the next 10 years 15 years maximum and the promise of solid-state batteries at that point in time will start to make electric vehicles plausible to American families.
All the major manufacturers are working on solid-state battery design, I think and I stress think Toyota expects to have a solid-state battery in 10 years. This will do away the need for lithium and a car will be able to be charged up in minutes but still not as fast as gasoline, yet.

LOL at that point in time we may find out your traditional gas station will be using gasoline powered mega generators to charge up the EV‘s!!!! LOL
Just having fun here, like any new technology there’s gonna be a wide range of changes power generation implications distribution implications and of course battery technology. I’m certainly not an expert on what’s in the pipeline other than things are going to change.

Well, change is the only constant.

Cali issues flex alerts when they know they are going to be close to the edge of available capacity, so they advise people to do more energy intensive things beforehand, to reduce load during that flex alert period (where they will actively cut loads if they have to). So, if it was the middle of the day with lots of solar and they have spare available capacity, but they see a shortfall coming at 6PM, they are advising people to do those things when solar capacity is available, rather than later when solar buggers off and they have to fire up the gas plants to keep the lights on.

Such as, telling people not to charge their EVs.

 

[JeffKeryk]

The ideal for a car is how the Prius operates with the Atkinson Cycle, which yields a real-world efficiency of around 40-41% because the engine is always operating in the sweet spot. The overall powertrain is of course even more efficient because of regenerative braking and the engine avoiding being used for takeoff.

Baseload plants indeed operate near peak output, but gas peakers do not, which greatly reduces efficiency. Even the most efficient CCGT plants, If they are chasing wind and solar, they are heavily manipulating their output, which dramatically reduces their efficiency.

And yes, electric motors are inherently more efficient, but you still have to look at what is producing the electricity.

I don't know much about the Prius, except they sold a ton of them around here. Toyota knows their hybrids!
I am guessing they are automatic transmissions, maybe CVT? I imagine there is an efficiency hit getting that energy to the ground.

 

[OVERKILL]

Well, change is the only constant.

Such as, telling people not to charge their EVs.

Yes, as I showed in my earlier post.

 

[brianl703]

Do you suppose that when air conditioning got cheaper and more affordable people asked "Where's all the electricity going to come to run these air conditioners"?

Pretty much every house built in the South prior to say the 1960s was built without air conditioning. And they all have it today, with very few exceptions. And it runs and works hard because the South is hot and humid.

 

[Wolf359]

The whole issue is you have a ton of people who let "perfect" become the enemy of "good". For them it's either all or nothing and that just creates stagnation for long periods of time. Everyone is aware that even if tomorrow 100% of all new cars being sold were electric it would take decades for all/most gas vehicles to go disappear. And they point to edge cases of people who drive hundreds of miles per day as a reason that we shouldn't move toward more electric cars. Most people would get by easily charging once, maybe twice a week at the high end and in most cases it'll be charging while you're doing something else, like sleeping.

Now, if you have a single family home with a garage/driveway this is fine. The bigger barrier is apartment complexes, or places with on-street parking where you usually don't have fixed parking spaces. I can't see most landlords of large MDUs or houses in cities investing money in EV charging equipment, considering often getting them to fix basic issues is usually like pulling teeth.

Charging will grow with demand. There's already several places in the city where you can charge up an EV, sometimes I see them empty so it's not like there's a huge line of people waiting to use them because there aren't enough right now. Large apartment complexes or parking lots will eventually have them and I suppose the city will eventually put in more charging spots as demand for them grows. They make up a very small percentage of cars sold now so of course as the market share increases, the infrastructure to support them will also slowly increase.

Years ago, back in the 60s, a lot of houses around here were built with electric baseboard heaters.

And more recently houses are built with heatpumps that have aux heat coils. My heat pump has 20kW of aux heat in it. I've disabled half of it so it's only 10kW, and I've further disabled it so it only comes on when the outdoor unit is in defrost.

But you take a not-so-well insulated house with a heat pump...that aux heat is going to run a LOT when the overnight low is 15-20F.

I have to assume that the grid is sized to handle a lot of houses running 10-20kW of aux heat during the night.

Some of the newer heat pumps work down to 5 degrees or even lower.

 

[JeffKeryk]

Well, $29K, but the other taxpayers or ratepayers picked up the $12K tab to subsidize it.

That includes a new roof. There is no doubt the subsidies played a part in my decision.
Same with the Tesla.

 

[PimTac]

Cali issues flex alerts when they know they are going to be close to the edge of available capacity, so they advise people to do more energy intensive things beforehand, to reduce load during that flex alert period (where they will actively cut loads if they have to). So, if it was the middle of the day with lots of solar and they have spare available capacity, but they see a shortfall coming at 6PM, they are advising people to do those things when solar capacity is available, rather than later when solar buggers off and they have to fire up the gas plants to keep the lights on.

I think it will go beyond that. The flex times will become permanent. Smart meters will enforce the idea.

 

[brianl703]

Some of the newer heat pumps work down to 5 degrees or even lower.

Will they output enough heat to maintain the setpoint at that temp?

I mean, my single-stage Trane XB 15 will work at 5F, it just won't heat the house any warmer than 60F (at that 5F outdoor temp) without aux heat (and my house is way better insulated and air sealed than the average house in this area).

 

[PimTac]

How so? They ask you to charge on cooler days/nights to reduce demand during the period of highest demand for cooling, and lower grid efficiency in high temps.

If the flex alert is issued for that day then I interpret the message as use all the electricity you can now to charge stuff up and whatever because later you will not be able. The one suggestion to cool down your house multiplied by thousands or hundreds of thousands is a ton of energy right there.